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This is scary: a bus carrying the Williamsport Crosscutters — the short season A-ball team of the Phillies — nearly plunged off a bridge in New York: The Williamsport Crosscutters were on their way to the team hotel in Brooklyn when the bus driver got lost, drove over the Verrazano Bridge and wound up on the Fingerboard Road overpass above the…

On the disabled list since July 22 with a left shoulder injury, Scott Rolen underwent surgery today to remove bone spur fragments and is expected to miss 4-6 weeks. Rolen has a long history of shoulder problems and hit just .242 with five homers and a .676 OPS in 65 games before the DL stint,…

C.J. Nitkowski pitched in the bigs for ten years but had to hang it up due to shoulder problems. Because of those problems, and because of the example of Bartolo Colon‘s rather startling comeback, Nitkowski decided to undergo the same stem cell treatment Colon famously received. Nitkowski writes about it in Sports Illustrated, and it’s…

Injuries to Chris Snyder, Ryan Doumit, and Jason Jaramillo left the Pirates so short on catching depth that they had to trade for 26-year-old career minor leaguer Michael McKenry and make him the starter. McKenry has predictably hit just .256 with a measly .642 OPS in 37 games, but his reign as the primary catcher…

La Russa Day continues here at HardballTalk. I missed this in all of this morning’s reports, but apparently we had another example of his pathological aversion to being the bigger man: Cardinals manager Tony La Russa says a fan told him he hoped he would get shingles again and that others took insults too far…

RadarOnline.com and Star magazine have published a report claiming Alex Rodriguez “played in an underground, illegal poker game where cocaine was openly used.” Tabloid reports should be taken with truck fulls of salt, obviously, but the story is a follow-up to the June crackdown of a Hollywood poker game in which big names like Tobey…

Look, I know that Jason Heyward is having a rough season. And I can understand why, given the fact that he seems to be fragile, that you give him a day off here and there. But can someone explain to me why Fredi Gonzalez is sitting Heyward again today, against a righty, in favor of…

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the knee injury that ended Carlos Santana‘s fantastic rookie season and by coincidence the Indians are playing a series against the Red Sox at Fenway Park, where the home plate collision took place. Santana hasn’t rediscovered the same success he had prior to Ryan Kalish running him over, but…

I always love it when my two biggest hobbies converge: Dateline Seattle: ESPN’s Jim Caple reports that a brewery is using maple bats — actual maple bats owned by Seattle Mariners players — to flavor beer. Yes, Caple makes the requisite “at least the bats are being used for something” joke. Given the use of…

When the Angels optioned 19-year-old stud prospect Mike Trout to the minors earlier this week I wondered why they sent him back to Double-A, where he’d already dominated for 75 games, instead of Triple-A, where he’d yet to play. Turns out, they want him to get playoff experience. Mike Scioscia told Jordan Garretson of MLB.com…

I’m worried Brendan Ryan‘s remarkable heads-up play from the A’s-Mariners game last night will get lost in the amusing tale of “Fake Ichiro” or the madness of the Brewers-Cardinals game, because it deserves plenty of attention. Ryan beat out a ground ball to shortstop for an infield single, sneakily took off for second base when…

Four teams are having a pretty rough go of it right now: the Giants, Mets, Royals and Astros. What do those four teams have in common? Carlos Beltran. I hereby recant all of my defenses of Beltran over the years. The man is obviously a selfish clubhouse cancer who doesn’t know how to win. UPDATE:…

Awful run support caused his win-loss record to be ugly, but with a 3.30 ERA in 20 starts Dustin Moseley has been a fantastic pickup for the Padres on a one-year, $900,000 deal. Unfortunately they won’t get more than 120 innings out of him, as Moseley will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a dislocated shoulder…

Yeah, I got La Russa on my mind today. And to be clear, as I always, always make a point of saying when I’m criticizing La Russa for something, I appreciate him as an all-time great manager. Honestly. He’s one of the best if not the best in my baseball-watching lifetime, and no one can…

Last week the Mariners sent Doug Fister and David Pauley to the Tigers for Casper Wells, prospects Charlie Furbush and Francisco Martinez, and an undisclosed player to be named later. The fourth player’s identity went unannounced because he was a 2010 draft pick and thus can’t officially be traded until he’s been signed for one…

The headline kind of says it all. Go to MLB.com for the video and the full explanation. To answer your immediate question, a fan grabbing a ball is not an automatic double. It’s often treated like that, but it’s an umpire’s judgement call as to what would have happened absent the interference, and I think…

Jake Arrieta will find out next week whether he needs season-ending surgery to remove a fibrous mass from his elbow, but even before his August 10 examination by Dr. Lewis Yocum the Orioles right-hander isn’t optimistic about avoiding going under the knife. “I don’t know if it’s 100 percent, but there’s a good chance I…

Tony La Russa suggested to MLB.com that the Cardinals may be interested in Arthur Rhodes, who was just DFA’d by the Rangers. His comment: “He’s been a hell of a pro for a long, long time,” La Russa said. “He’s got all our respect. Does that sound like intrigued?” Word on the street is that…

Yesterday it was speculated that last night would be Phil Hughes‘ last start and that, when the Yankees get off this six-man rotation thing, he’d be the odd man out, bullpen-bound. Now what happens? As we noted in the recaps, Hughes had a fine game. He shut out the White Sox over six innings, needing…

Well, tied for first place, but they got the mojo. The Dbacks have won four in a row and the Giants have dropped five straight. The last two in each of those streaks came against the other, and now the defending World Series champs are deadlocked with Arizona. I don’t necessarily believe in “statement games”…